You searched for "laser"
Don’t smoke after a septoplasty!
This is a retrospective review of 281 patients, all of whom underwent elective septoplasty. Simply put, those who smoked displayed a much higher postoperative septal perforation rate than those who did not. So, some cautionary advice for patients undergoing this...
Power tools dance off
The use of the harmonic scalpel is popular with some head and neck surgeons. This study looked at selective neck dissections for 40 patients with oral cavity carcinoma. They were randomised into harmonic scalpel (HS) use and monopolar electrocautery. The...
Basic principles of bioengineering and regeneration
The ability to create de novo tissue to replace that removed from patients during surgery is a relatively recent advance. However, this is a fast-moving field and one which surgeons must be aware of from practical, ethical and scientific viewpoints....
Honey in the management of mucositis
This is a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. Despite some limitations, they were able to identify that honey could reduce the severity of radio/chemotherapy induced oral mucositis. They acknowledge that the exact aetiology in the effect of honey is not...
Safe distances in the infratemporal fossa
This analysis from China involved 50 enhanced CT datasets to reconstruct the skull, internal carotid artery and the internal jugular vein. The anatomical routes of these vessels were related to the styloid process, height of the pterygoid plates, distance from...
Maxillary osteotomy stability
This systematic review assesses inferior repositioning of the maxilla six months after surgery. Two articles were identified with a total of 22 patients. The repositioning was of a mean of 3.2 to 4.5mm anteriorly and 0.1 to 1.8mm posteriorly. Six...
Balloon Eustachian tuboplasty
Eustachian tube dysfunction is a common condition, which is unfortunately lacking an effective treatment. This small study demonstrated the effectiveness of balloon Eustachian tuboplasty in a district hospital setting. It has been in use since 2010 and is beginning to...
Metaplasia of the concave septum
This group conducted a one year prospective study and sampled mucosa from 42 randomly selected patients with septal deviation at a single centre. They found significantly higher rate of squamous metaplasia and lymphocytic infiltration in septal mucosa on the concave...
High definition tractography to identify cranial nerves
It has always been challenging to visualise cranial nerves on traditional imaging as the cranial nerves have a fine structure and complex anatomy. This is especially true regarding the cochlear nerve. In congenitally hearing impaired children, the visualisation of the...
What can the anterior cranial fossa fracture pattern tell us?
This assessment involves 81 patients treated between two regional major trauma centres in the UK. Fifty sustained a predominantly anterior directed force and 31 a lateral impact. They found that anterior impacts reduce the incidence of fracture propagated beyond the...
Development of an ENT undergraduate curriculum
With over a third of medical schools not including any clinical attachment in the subject, this is a laudable attempt to confront the deficiencies in undergraduate ENT teaching within the UK. The Delphi process is an established method of developing...
